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Niccolò Machiavelli rather than Erin Brockovich is more of a touchstone for Jessica Chastain’s title dynamo in Miss Sloane, a political melodrama that tries hard to be important and settles for engrossing.

Chastain’s Elizabeth Sloane is not at all sympathetic but she is magnetic, as a Washington lobbyist whose desire to win, ethics be damned, makes her catnip to both sides of the gun-control legislation that drives Jonathan Perera’s screenplay. She’s not above hiring fake protesters to spin the bedazzled media.

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“I don’t do half-baked,” Sloane says, in one of her many zingers to dazed allies and adversaries alike on Capitol Hill, who alternately admire and loathe her as circumstances dictate. She means it, too, eschewing sleep and meaningful relationships as she ruthlessly pursues her goals.

Which have suddenly turned murky, as Sloane is wooed by both hawks who want to “empower” women with guns and doves who want to reduce access to lethal weapons. Sloane could aid either side, but she also has to contend with a crusading U.S. senator (John Lithgow) who holds her to account for an ethical breach that seems tame in these Trumpian times.

Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) has a large cast at his command, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mark Strong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alison Pill, Sam Waterston and Jake Lacy also entering Chastain’s orbit. Mbatha-Raw, soon to star in Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time, particularly impresses as an associate of Sloane’s whose sense of integrity isn’t for sale.

The symbols employed are bit ripe — there are frequent shots of the Watergate complex and a character name tips to a paranoia film classic — and it’s hard not to think that TV’s House of Cards does it all better.

But this is Chastain’s movie, as the title implies. She’s never less than riveting — and who says she has to be likeable?

The teenage years are angst-filled ones but what Sadie’s got is off the charts.

Research on a class assignment has convinced Sadie the world is ending on Dec. 21 — the Mayan calendar and other sources say so — so she’s made a to-do list, is loading up on survival gear and has turned her bedroom into a bunker to ride out the impending apocalypse. Let the countdown begin.

The concept sounds like it could be fun. Yet Sadie’s Last Days manages to be only fitfully amusing and not particularly thought-provoking.

Writer/director Michael Seater gets some things right, including the casting. Ricardo Hoyos brings charm and appeal to the role of would-be boyfriend Jack and Clark Backo turns in a poised performance as BFF Brennan.

Morgan Taylor Campbell’s performance as Sadie is not quite there — she’s not terribly likable — but that’s more Seater’s fault than Campbell’s.

One is left with the gnawing feeling that the film could have been edgier and funnier and that it doesn’t authentically reflect the adolescent experience.

A young man is desperately lost on a snowy mountain. A small Alaskan community rallies to save him. But all is not what it seems.

In fact, with the family charter boat business in trouble, two brothers cook up an unlikely plan for some ready cash: send brother Miles into the wild then sell his story to the media for big bucks once he’s “rescued.”

This unlikely scenario hobbles Sugar Mountain from the outset. Chequebook journalism of this sort is just not that plausible. But the script by Abe Pogos has some unexpected turns to keep things interesting.

The performances are also quite good, including Shane Coffey as tortured younger brother Liam, who secretly loves older brother Miles’ long-time girlfriend and co-conspirator Lauren, and Cary Elwes as the flawed lawman determined to get to the bottom of things. Jason Momoa is delightfully menacing as local thug Joe Bright.

Despite a shaky premise, an engaging cast and a sinuous storyline make Sugar Mountain a moderately diverting adventure.

Set in a funky Brooklyn neighbourhood that’s in the process of gentrifying, this latest gem from Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange), is a generational feud of confused adults vs. determined teens.

Brian and Kathy Jardine (Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle), the married new owners of a dress shop, want to triple the rent of their seamstress tenant, a Chilean immigrant named Leonor (Gloria’s Paulina Garcia). The Jardines feel they can no longer afford the sweetheart deal allowed Leonor by their recently deceased grandfather, who deeded them the shop.

Leonor, a single mom, insists she can’t afford to pay more. The battling adults have 13-year-old sons, aspiring artist Jake and aspiring actor Tony, fast new friends played by wonderful newcomers Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri. Refusing to take sides, the teens begin a silent protest.

This could be sitcom stuff in the wrong hands, but Sachs and his fantastic cast (which includes Love Is Strange star Alfred Molina) bring wisdom and humour to the situation.

PH

Suicide Squad (DVD)

Starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Viola Davis and Joel Kinnaman. Written and directed by David Ayer. Available Dec. 13 on DVD. 123 minutes. PG

David Ayer’s strange embrace of good-guy supervillains tantalizes even as it overstimulates, bringing exciting new characters to the big screen, along with the glum suspicion it’s merely a noisy roll-call for further adventures.

Casting and costuming are impeccable for this Toronto-filmed blockbuster.

Will Smith’s fatherly hit man character Deadshot is the best role he’s had in nearly a decade, his zingers as lethal as his ammunition. Margot Robbie is a drop-dead delight as Harley Quinn, a prison psychiatrist turned killer clown girlfriend of the Joker, whom Jared Leto invests with ferocious charisma.

This barely begins a character tally also taking in Viola Davis as a stone-cold government official, along with cameos from Ben Affleck’s Batman and Ezra Miller’s The Flash.

With all these moving parts, it’s no wonder writer/director Ayer often seems adrift, lacking the realism, rigour and pacing he’s brought to his previous dramas. Yet Suicide Squad succeeds in whetting appetites for future fun.

Extras include an extended cut and making-of featurettes.

PH

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